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In this photo taken on Dec. 17, 2009, a military transport plane takes off from Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan, Okinawa, Japan. When the air station was built in the closing days of World War II, it was surrounded by sugarcane fields and the smoldering battlegrounds of Okinawa. It is now the epicenter of a deepening dispute souring Japan's security alliance with the United States and testing a new government in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)
/ AP